Hos"pi*tal*er (?), n. [Written also hospitaller.] [F. hospitalier. See Hospital, and cf. Hostler.]
1.
One residing in a hospital, for the purpose of receiving the poor, the sick, and strangers.
2.
One of an order of knights who built a hospital at Jerusalem for pilgrims, A. D. 1042. They were called Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and after the removal of the order to Malta, Knights of Malta.
© Webster 1913.